


strangers

by jessamoo



Category: Y Gwyll | Hinterland
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 12:51:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14671491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessamoo/pseuds/jessamoo
Summary: mared and tom are forced to share a bed and mared reflects on a few things...





	strangers

Her face, upon discovering they would have to share a bed, was probably the same as his. Shock and overall embarrasment.

"We didn't know there'd be two of you see, and we're having the other rooms painted this week. Bring them up to date like." The landlady says.

Before Mared can reply, Tom nods and accepts the room key without any further comment. He did that. He wasn't a big fan of small talk. Sometimes they had whole converations without saying a word - Though no one said anything as they ascended the stairs of the small b and b.

Mared felt every creaking floorboard underneath her feet laughing at her and she cursed herself for caring, when Tom, for all appearences, did not.

 

Tom lays on the bed in his clothes with a sigh. They were going to interview suspects in the morning and they had called ahead to b and b's upon realising how far out they were. His shirt already looked rumpled from wear. She wonders when he last ironed it.

Mared rolled her eyes, deciding she might as well brazen this whole thing out if he wasn't going to say anything.

"You can't sleep in your clothes like that." She said.

One brown eye opened to squint up at her suggestively.

"You know what I mean." 

A small smile tugged at his lips. "It'll be alright. No worse than I normally look."

She huffed an agreement and he looked at her properly.

She lay on her back next to him, mirroring his position and they stared at the ceiling. Tom started shifting around, punching at his pillow and generally fidgeting.

"Thought you'd be used to sleeping on uncomfortable beds."

"Why, because I see enough of them?"

She couldn't help but laugh. He must be tired if he was joking with her. "No, because you live in a hotel."

"I live in a BnB. But I'll get used to it, it's not the worst place I've slept."

Oh thanks, she thinks, then chides herself.

"What's the difference between a hotel and a BnB?"

She feels him shrug. "One's posh and one has mould on the ceiling." He points to said ceiling. "There you go, mould, on the house. Literally."

She swats his hand with a chuckle. "Don't be daft."

He turns to smile at her, and it's gentleness alarms her suddenly. He was the type of person who couldn't do soft. Softness would suffocate him, they both knew that.

Before she can say anything, her phone rings. It's screen is too bright in the gathering darkness as the sun set around them.

 

"Nos da, Cariad." She finishes up her phone call with Elin.

It had felt curiously intimate, knowing he was laying beside her, having Elin none the wiser on the other end of the phone. 

"She alright?" Tom asks. She knows he means it. He didn't say things he didn't mean, especially when it came to family. He was more prone to keep things inside, disappear into himself, than lash out - At least at her, anyway. Sometimes she wishes he would, just so she could figure out what he was thinking quicker.

"Yeah, she's fine. She's not calling to reassure me, she's calling for herself. Get to a certain age and your kids are taking care of you."

Tom doesn't say anything, and she knows he's thinking about his own daughter. Somewhere out there in the world, not knowing if he was thinking about her. She wants to ask him about it, but she knows she can't. She stays as still as possible. Its been a while since she'd felt the weight of another person beside her. There had been men, sometimes. When Elin might have stayed at a friends, or after the rare date. But not like this. This had a sharpness to it, a realness that she wanted to back away from.

Eventually, she feels him fall asleep beside her. She turns away from him, letting herself look only once. People looked so peaceful when they slept. A man who lived on coffee on guilt, with circles under his eyes. Suddenly she could almost glimpse the person he had been before, in the movement of his chest or the curve of his eyelashes.

 

They see Dai Evans first thing in the morning. His daughters pictures line the walls as they go in, but there's no happiness there. He looks like he hasn't slept.

"She suffer, did she? My Bethan?" He asks them. They sit on the sofa opposite him. There's used tea cups everywhere and Mared remembers Evans was a widower. Now he'd lost his daughter too.

"The pathologist is sure it was quick. A blow to the head, we're still trying to figure out with what. But she would have been unconcious." Tom says calmly.

It's not an outright lie. His daughter had been murdered by a blow to the head. But she hadn't been unconcious, at least not right away. She'd fought. She'd dragged herself on her hands and knees quite a way, considering the blood loss, the dizziness she would have experienced. Bethan Evans had fought for her life on a forest floor. She had tried to get back to her father. Mared knows why Tom told her lie - It was a sort of kindness. But she thinks she'd have preferred the truth. If it were Elin, she'd have wanted to know exactly what had happened. But she didn't know for sure of course. It had happened to Tom. Maybe he knew what he was doing.

Dai Evans nodded, staring at his hands. They shook.

"They break your hearts. When she was born, we didn't know what she'd be, see. Didn't want to ruin the surprise my wife said. And she was this perfect little girl. I looked down at her and I was so frightened because I loved her so much. And I know what places like this do to girls. They feel trapped, they want someone to come and rescue them and take them away. And it gets to the point where you can't protect them anymore."

The silence is so loud. Mared swallows and dares a look at her boss. She can see the tension in him. He's pressing his hands together so tightly his knuckles are turning white. She wants to put her hands over his. She wants to press the sadness out of him with her fingertips.

"D'you have kids?"

Mared nods. "A girl. Well. A young woman now, I suppose." She doesn't know what makes her tell him. She doesn't like bringing Elin into this world. Elin is seperate and better for it. But Dai Evans looks like someone let the air out of him. Like he's collapsing in on himself.

"I have - " Tom stumbles, just for a brief second. "A daughter. She's only little."

"Then you keep her close. That's the most precious time. Sooner or later you'll look up and she'll be a stranger."

 

"I don't see my daughter. Not anymore. She's already a stranger."

Tom says it into the darkness. At the moon through the window. His back is too her and he has his arms wrapped tightly around himself.

"I know you don't."

Mared knew the basics of what happened. She'd been so determined to be angry with him when he'd first arrived, swooping in and taking her job. But when she'd seen him, really seen him, she'd known. She'd seen enough grieving families in her time, and she'd seen enough criminals. He had the wild eyed, hunted look of both, back then. She figured this job was the only thing tethering him to reality. And he'd been good at it.

She'd let her insecurities get to her for about five minutes. He'd accepted it. And she realised she liked him and that maybe he wasn't a total arse, even if that is what she told Elin. But she'd never pried. She'd also never had good taste in men, so the desperate desire to pry had always been there. She'd itched and ached with the idea that she could help him. It was so frustrating. It was like there were dark, empty splotches on his soul that he wouldn't let anyone see. And she couldn't push him. So she just had to be there for him however she could. She wasn't like Sian, who could seperate everything when it came to the job. Cold and beautiful Sian, who would be in charge one day, and who saw things in black and white. Mared had had to help him when no one else would, when it could have meant her job. Because that was all she knew how to do. That was what he needed. To know someone, just one person, stood beside him.

So she doesn't say anything else. She turns to him and slowly moves his hands. He stiffens just for a moment before giving in. She winds their fingers together, resting her arm against his, pressing her body against his back. 

She sighs against his shoulder. She tries to imagine him in her house, meeting her daughter, but she can't. 

So she holds him tighter, until the morning.


End file.
